


Drown

by tentacledicks



Series: Into The Storm [14]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Games)
Genre: BDSM, Dom/sub, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Panic Attacks, Punishment, Safewords, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 23:17:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentacledicks/pseuds/tentacledicks
Summary: Aiden tries to push a limit. It goes... poorly.





	Drown

**Author's Note:**

> If the tags weren't warning enough, Aiden's gonna get triggered as shit.

**March 15th, 2018, 18:07**

The slow drag of leather over his thigh made Aiden shudder, all his focus on keeping his breathing even. Jordi’s belt was cool, not skin-warmed like the collar around Aiden’s neck, and the soft click of the metal buckle came as sharp counterpoint to the ragged breaths Aiden was dragging through his teeth. Jordi was dead silent, the only sign of his presence being the belt pressed against Aiden’s naked legs.

“What’s your safeword?” Jordi finally asked, with the ritualistic weight the words had come to carry over time. Never ‘are you sure’ or ‘do you want to’. Only ever the question of what his safeword was. Better than asking permission, because if Jordi asked permission, Aiden _ knew _ what his pride would make him do.

He dragged in another shuddering breath, then swallowed and said, “Green is good, yellow is hold on, red for stop.”

“And you know why I’m doing this?” Jordi’s voice was even, almost bored. There was no palpable sense of menace to it, nothing to hint at the violence to come, but Aiden hissed like he’d be struck, nerves firing all at once.

He knew why Jordi was doing this. Because Aiden, even when he wanted to drop into that euphoric, wonderful headspace where Jordi took care of everything, couldn’t help pushing back. He always had to get another word in, always had to resist for a few minutes more, always had to make Jordi force him in little ways. The thrill of the fight was what made it worth it. Sometimes, Jordi didn’t agree. And sometimes, Aiden wanted to take his own boundaries and push them further, see what Jordi would do to punish that kind of insolence if Aiden let him.

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing around the tightness in his throat, his knuckles white with how hard he was gripping the back of the couch in their rented suite. “I know why you’re doing this.”

The feeling of leather was replaced by the dry, rough skin of Jordi’s palm, cupping Aiden’s ass. He struggled to get his breathing under control, trying to ignore the pounding in his ears even as he forced himself not to focus on the way Jordi was touching him. This was flying closer to the edge of the sun than they’d ever gone, taking a risk on Aiden’s ability to see his own limits. The flogger was something he could handle. The belt…

He shivered when Jordi’s hand pulled away, then gasped when his fingers came back, sharp and vicious, the sting closer to the flogger than less pleasant memories. Jordi didn’t give him time to adjust, smacking the other cheek just as sharply, and then hitting him with the full weight of his palm. Aiden choked off his gasp this time, gritting his teeth and leaning up on his toes in an attempt to get away from the pain.

“Why am I doing this, Aiden?” Jordi asked, lightly tapping the leather of the belt loop against the stinging across Aiden’s ass. For all that it was phrased like a question, it was an order. Failing to answer would make the punishment worse.

“Fucked up your dinner,” Aiden managed, the anticipation of pain coiling taut in his gut along with something that felt almost like arousal. “Kept fucking it up when you told me I was in for it if I did. Told you to kiss my ass.”

“Mhm. And did any of that work out for you?”

He didn’t get a chance to reply, the sharp crack of the belt ringing out as pain erupted where it landed. The bright heat of it closed his throat, caught a whine and strangled it until only the smallest sound escaped, then cut off even that when the leather caught his skin again. 

Four hits in, Jordi’s cool voice came again. “Color?”

Aiden’s chest heaved, his skin flushed hot and too tight across his bones. The tight pressure in his muscles built with every strike, coiling until he was too wound up to focus on anything but the empty anticipation between blows. He licked his lips, tried to center himself, and whispered, “Green.”

The belt came down again, a little faster now, leaving stinging welts behind with each strike. Another cry bloomed and died in his throat, like acid spilling into his vocal cords. His breath hitched, faltered, tried to match the beat that Jordi was setting. Sharp. Rhythmatic. Steady.

But just unsteady enough that he couldn’t adjust to the beat of it. Every time he thought he’d caught his breath, started to embrace the pain, the belt would come down a second sooner than he expected. It kept him off balance, the same way the changing locations kept him off balance, all of his weight on his hands now as he tried to outrun the pain. His ass, the back of his thighs, once dangerously close to his taint, a pattern that Aiden couldn’t catch the shape of no matter how hard he tried.

The twisting tension in his core was all taut anxiety now, the hints of arousal gone. There was a reason he’d done this, Aiden knew that, a reason why he’d let himself be bent over like someone in need of punishment. He had a reason.

Distantly, he heard, “Give me a color.”

‘Why am I doing this, Aiden?’ echoed through him in a different voice, something darker, with the burred edges of an accent. The palm that smoothed over the aching welts on his ass wasn’t a comfort, not when the threat it carried was still too real. Not when he couldn’t trust it anymore. Not when— 

Too deep. In his own head, out of his own head, whichever way it went, he’d gone too deep. Aiden sucked in air like a drowning man, hunted for the right word, curled his fingers into claws as he tried to grasp it while fighting to stay on his toes. If he dropped to the flats of his feet, the pain would be worse, and he’d be closer to the belt. He couldn’t let himself get closer, not when that meant the punishment would be so much worse. 

The hand on his bruised skin left, carrying with it the promise of pain again. Panicking, Aiden threw the first thing out he could remember, whispering, “Dad, wait—”

Time stopped. His lungs were so tightly wrapped in steel that he couldn’t even begin to breathe in the air that had grown heavy enough he could feel its weight on his back. The words had slipped out before he’d gotten a chance to think about them, and now he couldn’t take it back.

“Red,” Jordi said flatly.

Aiden gasped, ice washing down his spine like Jordi had dumped a bucket of cold water on him. The throb of his heartbeat had settled at his temples, jaw aching from the way he’d gritted his teeth. He’d been so focused on the next strike that he’d stopped paying attention to every other part of his body, and all the strain in his muscles hit him at once.

“Jordi?” His voice was thready, wavering, weak in a way that Aiden despised hearing from himself, especially when Jordi’s fingers found his collar. Of course he’d managed to fuck this up somehow. Even though he was the one who’d asked Jordi to try it in the first place, he’d fucked it up.

“We’re done. You’re fine. We’re _ done_.” The collar dropped away from his throat, the emptiness it left behind cold and aching, and Aiden couldn’t help the soft wounded sound he made at its loss. If he could just stop fucking up for once— 

“Sorry,” he managed after a second, a tremble running through him, his throat tight for an entirely different set of reasons now. He’d fucked up. “Didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”

“Shut up.” And then, after a sharp, frustrated sigh, Jordi’s voice softened. “No, don’t shut up, just—I need you to go back to the bedroom and lie down, okay? I can’t do this.”

That didn’t sound right, but Aiden was too muddled to tease out the underlying meaning in the words. There had to be one, because there was always an underlying meaning. If he could get his brain to work, maybe he’d be able to figure it out, but nothing made sense anymore. He’d fucked up.

Jordi’s fingers curled around his jaw, strange and gentle, then pushed at Aiden’s shoulder in clear command. Go to the bedroom and lie down.

Confused, upset, and aching, Aiden went. He clawed off his sweater as he did, pants and underwear already abandoned in the living room, but the feeling of cool air on bare skin while he was still half-dressed was wrong, unsettling. Too much a reminder of the belt. At least if he was naked, one thing would fit properly in his head.

The sheets on the bed stretched out bright and white, clean and perfect unlike the stains on his heart. When he pressed his palms against the mattress, it gave, eased underneath the weight of his body, embraced him as he collapsed forward. 

Fuck._ Fuck. _He stretched his legs out and laid flat on his stomach, unwilling to trust any pressure on the welts, then pushed his face deeper into the cool cotton of the pillowcase. Everything was a mess, in his head and out of it, the yawning emptiness that opened up in his chest threatening to drag him down and bury him. He’d thought he was good, thought he could do this, and he’d fucked up. And now Jordi—

His teeth sank into the pillow, muffling the unhappy sound that wanted to work its way out of his throat. A few seconds later, fingers buried themselves in his hair, rough but not unkind. The bed creaked and bounced as Jordi climbed on it, and the soft clunk of glass on the side table followed. Jordi’s hand stayed steady the whole while, nails scraping over Aiden’s scalp as he dragged his fingers through the messy locks.

“I’m not hitting you again,” Jordi said eventually, something raw and unhappy in his voice. “I don’t care if you want to try it, I don’t care if you think you can handle it, I’m not fucking hitting you again. What happened to your safeword?”

“I was trying to remember it. The other thing just—it slipped out. I would’ve said it. I—” He lifted his head from the pillow, tried to find the right words, and felt all of them die when he saw Jordi’s face.

Tentatively, he reached a hand out and rubbed Jordi’s thigh. Jordi had been wearing his slacks and a dress shirt when they’d started, but now he was only in a set of boxers, his legs dark with hair. There was a tension in those muscles, but Jordi’s fingers were still loving in Aiden’s hair, just mean enough to make his presence known. Which was good. That was right, when everything else had been wrong.

“I don’t do the ‘daddy’ shit,” Jordi said, his expression set into something hard and unyielding. “You know why I don’t, not even as a way to get you out of—”

“I know,” Aiden said, the vacuum in his chest threatening to eat him alive. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“If you knew that was going to make you think of your dad—”

“Jordi,” he interrupted, forcing himself to sit up even though it sent a burn through the backs of his thighs, “I didn’t realize it would. I didn’t think of it at all. I forgot that my dad even used to belt me, okay? I’m_ sorry_. I’m sorry.”

For a long, sickening moment, Jordi didn’t reply, only hunted for something in Aiden’s face. Whatever it was, he found it, some of the tightness around his mouth disappearing as he pulled Aiden forward and held him close. “You don’t have to apologize. I should’ve checked in sooner. This was my fault too.”

“I really didn’t remember.” He tucked his face into Jordi’s neck, curled an arm around his stomach and pressed into the heat of Jordi’s body. Everything was still wrong, but at least he had Jordi to center himself against. The touch settled him, took some of the ragged edges of the hole inside him and started to stitch them together even though the anxiety rolling through his gut made him sick.

Jordi’s fingers dragged through his hair again, rough at first and then gentling as he held Aiden and slowly relaxed. His other hand curled over Aiden’s knee, kept him close, their bodies touching in a long line. “It’s okay. You’re fine. Christ. How do you forget something like that?”

“He stopped. Or, I guess, it stopped working.” He dragged in a slow, careful breath and pressed his face harder against Jordi’s skin, wrapping himself in that scent that was all Jordi and nothing else. “I stopped letting him catch me. And when he tried it on Nicky, we just started getting into fights instead. The later stuff, that stuck more.”

“Have you ever met a man that doesn’t want to beat your ass?” Jordi muttered, his lips dry and warm when they pressed into Aiden’s temple.

He thought about the flogger that they used sometimes now, the way Jordi’s hands felt right when they wrapped around his throat, the bruises and welts Jordi’s hands left even when they weren’t hitting him. Thought about how much he asked for it, craved it, as long as it didn’t remind him of the specific way the Club fucked up their ex-members, the way Damien tried to go in on him once, the way men with money made sure their fixers stayed silent. “No, I don’t think I have.”

Jordi grunted, palm smoothing over Aiden’s thigh, then pressed another kiss to his brow. “I ordered ice cream. Delivery app. I need some fucking ice cream, you need some fucking ice cream, chocolate goes well with whiskey. How’s your ass feel?”

“Sore. Stings a little. Not so bad it won’t fade in an hour or two though.” Funny how the damage was minor, given how bad it’d made him panic. He should’ve realized that Jordi would be as exacting and careful in his beatings as he was everything else. It was just— “I’m sorry.”

“Apologize again and I’ll break your fucking neck,” Jordi said without any heat, his hands gentle as they stroked over scars and skin. “I should’ve known better than to try a hard limit like that. It’s not gonna happen.”

“I wanted to try.” He swallowed around the tightness in his throat, the bruised, wounded ache in his chest, and shuddered when Jordi stroked his back again. “I thought I could handle it.”

“It’s not about _ handling _ it, it’s about _ enjoying _ it. You like punishment in the right context. Doesn’t mean you have to force yourself to try it in other contexts.” The hand on Aiden’s side made its way to his jaw, then tipped his head up as Jordi kissed him sweetly.

His breath hitched and he kissed back, his own fingers curling loosely around Jordi’s wrist. Words were cheap, but Jordi’s mouth on his was a better forgiveness than any reassurances could be. If Jordi was still willing to kiss him, he hadn’t fucked up irrevocably. If Jordi was still willing to _ touch _ him, Aiden could salvage the mess he’d made of this entire fucking situation.

The soft knock on the door made Jordi finally pull away, untangling himself from Aiden and standing to head into the front room. He made no move to put clothes on, the lack of them easing the surge of sourceless terror that threatened to well up in Aiden’s chest. Jordi wouldn’t go anywhere in anything less than business casual, which meant Jordi wasn’t about to walk out on him.

He felt like an idiot, terrified of that possibility, but feeling like an idiot didn’t do anything to quell the anxiety. 

Before he could work himself into a panic attack, Jordi returned, a plastic bag in one hand and a pair of glass tumblers in the other. The glasses were set on the bed stand, next to the half-full bottle of whiskey Aiden hadn’t noticed until now. The plastic bag was dumped in his lap, ice cold and heavy enough to make him hiss softly. He dug the tubs of ice cream out, setting them on the bed along with the napkins and plastic spoon, while Jordi thumped down next to him again and poured them both drinks.

“Tell me about your dad,” Jordi said, handing over a glass of whiskey and picking up one of the tubs. The ice cream was soft enough that even a plastic spoon could cut through it easily, and Aiden took a bite before answering.

“Do you really want to talk about this now?” he asked, his voice rough. Knocking back the whiskey helped, the burn spilling into the empty hole in his chest and clearing the acid from his throat. Jordi was right—chocolate and whiskey went well together.

“If you don’t talk, _ I’m _ going to talk, and we _ really _ don’t want me to talk. So yeah. Tell me about your dad. You left Ireland to get away from him?” The long muscular line of Jordi’s body was warm where it pressed against him, skin to skin, taut with remembered anger. Not directed towards Aiden. That much he was certain of.

Aiden wavered, then took another bite of ice cream. “Yeah. We left because of him. He was… _ We _ were getting bad, me and him. When I was younger, he’d go for my mom instead of us, but after that first time he went to hit Nicky… I got in the way. Wanted him to hit me instead of her. I could take it. She couldn’t. And then I started hitting back.”

“Huh. Not very smart for a bomber. Why’d your mom stay for so long?” Jordi leaned over and refilled Aiden’s glass, then held up a bite of his own ice cream. It was fudgy caramel instead of the basic chocolate he’d been given, and it melted on his tongue easily.

“Where else could she go? We had some cousins in America, on her grandmother’s side, but her whole life was in Belfast. Bad enough that we were Catholic, but I was disrespectful, my dad was fucking insane…” With a wave of his spoon, he tried to encompass the whole of the situation his mother had been forced into. She hadn’t always been perfect. But then, neither had he. “In the end, we ran anyways. Ended up in Chicago. Needed the money and the connections to make it all legal.”

“Which is how you ended up with the Club,” Jordi said, pouring himself more whiskey. “Look at that, we’re almost twins.”

“Jesus, don’t say it like that,” Aiden muttered, digging into his ice cream more aggressively than he needed to. Talking about his dad dredged up bad memories, loosened more of the grit on the riverbottom of his consciousness. He’d forgotten the belt. He hadn’t forgotten much else. Just… buried it, for a while, and now it was all swimming back up to the surface.

“I learned pretty quickly that begging didn’t do much.” The tone in Jordi’s voice was all wrong for the words, light and almost jocular. Fake. Aiden leaned harder into his shoulder, free hand gripping Jordi’s leg tight. 

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” Aiden said, feeling the tension in the muscles under his palm. “I can keep talking instead.”

Jordi laughed mirthlessly, knocking back his whiskey again. “Yeah, well. We’ve gone and ruined the mood anyways, might as well ruin it further, right?”

Instead of answering, Aiden pushed his empty glass and ice cream away, climbing into Jordi’s lap. The other man let him, lifting an arm and stretching a leg out so Aiden could settle more easily, the burn across the back of his thighs ignored for the moment. Jordi’s ice cream was set next to the bottle of whiskey, his glass abandoned on the sheets with no regard for staining, and his hands smoothed over Aiden’s sides before settling at his hips.

“_Really _ not in the mood, Aiden,” Jordi said, but he didn’t push him away.

“I don’t want sex, I just want you to look at me. Just,” Aiden swallowed, then cupped Jordi’s face and stared at him, “look at me. Please.”

For a long couple of seconds, Jordi stared down at his own hands instead. Then finally he looked up, tipped his head slightly, and kissed one of Aiden’s palms. “Alright. I’m looking. Now what?”

“Are you mad at me?” Aiden asked, his voice low and steady despite the way anxiety writhed in his chest. He hated himself for asking at all, but the fearful part of him that _ knew _ it had fucked up needed to hear it anyways. At least he managed it without sounding like he was going to cry.

Jordi’s expression softened, the tension at the corners of his eyes easing. “I’m not mad at you. Okay? I am the opposite of mad at you. Everything's just... shit.”

“Yeah. Okay. I can agree with that.” He nodded, shut his eyes and leaned in until their foreheads were touching. “Do you want to take a bath and forget we even tried this?”

Jordi laughed again, but it was rough and tired, honest instead of bitter. “That sounds like the only good idea either of us has had all night.”

“Don’t knock the ice cream and whiskey.” Aiden sighed, then kissed Jordi just to feel the scrape of his beard again. Just to feel how right it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Next month I start NaNo and disappear into the abyss again, but with any luck, I'll get the third proper chaptered entry to the series done there. It's gonna be Jordi-centric! This is not necessarily a good thing.
> 
> For him, at least. _I'm_ going to have fun with it.


End file.
